It happened at El Molinón, on Sunday, November 25, 1979, in a League match between Sporting and Madrid. The public, outraged with the referee’s performance, which was added to other similar ones against the same opponent, launched a new cry of protest: “Like this, like this, like this Madrid wins.” Simple and direct: very soon he triumphed throughout the Spanish football geography.
Let’s look at the background. At the end of the 70s of the last century, Sporting brought together a group of excellent players. In the 1978-79 season, Madrid suffered to win the title and the one who kept the pulse until the end was Vicente Miera’s Sporting, in which Quini shone as a great scorer, but also his brother, the goalkeeper Jesús Castro, who died of heroic way in 1993 when saving a child who was drowning in the sea, the Argentines Doria, Rezza and Ferrero, the future Barça player Enrique Morán, charismatic players like Ciriaco, Joaquín, Uría, Mesa… and veterans who gave way, like Valdés, very popular on all playing fields due to the anecdote he starred in in 1975 when in a match against Real Sociedad his toupee flew off in a header and the whole world saw it on television.
That season the side by side was epic. On matchday 27 (out of 34) Sporting and Madrid were tied at 36 points and they met at El Molinón. The League at stake. Madrid won 0-1, with a goal from Santillana and refereeing by Pes Pérez who was praised by both sides. The biggest controversy had arisen before, on the previous day, when two esportinguistas, none other than Doria and Ferrero, saw the yellow card that closed the cycle and prevented them from lining up against Madrid. Ferrero’s, shortly before the end and claiming the distance from the barrier, seemed excessive. “There are people who cannot hide that they are from Madrid,” the former Boca player complained.
Fast forward a few months,?1979-80 campaign. José Manuel Díaz Novoa now sits on the Asturian bench, since Miera has moved to Espanyol, where he will not finish the season. But Sporting is the same, with Quini as a bomber (he won the Pichichi, as in the following two years, then as a Barcelona player). A spectacular start, with seven victories in seven days, placed Sporting as the sole leader and showing off its chest: 4-1 against Barcelona led by Rifé, a dull team that stood at El Molinón with this eleven that says it all: Amigó, Estella, Migueli, Canito, Serrat; Landáburu, Sánchez, Asensi; Rexach, Simonsen and Carrasco. Then Rubio and Esteban entered. The fourth goal was a prodigy from Ferrero: control in the left zone and a double break to Estella, then he dribbled past Migueli already in the area and finally shot into the top corner. The apotheosis.
This time the climax clash with Madrid came much earlier, on the eleventh matchday, when the Novoa block had already shown some signs of fatigue, especially the 1-4 at home against Zaragoza, another fantastic team of which it is enough to review the four scorers from Gijón: Pichi Alonso, Amorrortu, Víctor Muñoz and Valdano. Antic also played.
In any case, the game against Madrid was worth it. At that time the leadership was shared by Real Sociedad and the whites (16 points) and Sporting was third (15). Once again the League passed through El Molinón and everything quickly became complicated. In the midst of a battle for television rights (it was even close to being suspended for the entire day), the Minister of Culture, Manuel Clavero Arévalo, dusted off a 1959 decree to force the live broadcast of a match that had aroused enormous expectation in Madrid And everywhere. Even Camilo Sesto appeared in the box.
Madrid started a 1-1 draw, but the referee, Ausocúa Sanz, was not lucky, so to speak. In just six minutes came the key play that led to the birth of the most famous protest song in Spanish football. Enzo Ferrero, the unstoppable esportinguista winger, had it out with the madridista defender Isidoro San José. The Argentine wanted to deceive the Madrid native by passing one way while the ball was going the other way and San José blocked him violently. “He broke my lip and a tooth,” he explained. Ferrero, who would not be shy either, turned furiously and the defender fell struck down. “He made a fool of himself,” Ferrero said. Whatever it was, Ausocúa arrived and sent off the local player, which gave rise to a shocking image. The one who left the field did so with a bloody face, the one who stayed had nothing and he continued playing, until Vujadin Boskov preferred to replace him before the break, because the scandal was thunderous. Sporting was left without its most innovative player for the entire match. In case something was missing, in the 41st minute Benito entered Mesa with violence and Ausocúa arrived with the red… to immediately rectify and change it for a yellow one. “I had the wrong pocket,” he said. “The referee? He was a good player,” Novoa said.
In a report by La Nueva España with the protagonists of the day, the full-back Cundi was forceful: “So Madrid was in charge and they committed some milk robberies on us.” Many years later Ausocúa Sanz remembered it: “Ferrero kicked him and hit him with his hand, I had to expel him. That’s when the thunderous shout began, ‘Come on, pads are falling,’ and I suspended the game for several minutes.”
The reaction of the public and the deafening chant of “This way, this way, this is how Madrid wins” became famous. And this happened, what things, due to the presence of television. If it had not been seen and heard on TVE it would surely have passed as just another anecdote. But all the Spanish fans then followed the only televised match. And the lyrics of the protest spread throughout the Primera fields. So so…
